


Driving Ms McGonagall

by Milotzi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: hphet, F/M, Fanart, Fest2019, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 21:29:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18949021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milotzi/pseuds/Milotzi
Summary: After many years, a chance encounter and a journey that brings happiness





	Driving Ms McGonagall

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. Link to the original artwork in the British Museum: [Auch ich war in Arkadien (Kolbe) ](https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1452095&partId=1)

  
**Title:** Driving Ms McGonagall  
**Author/Artist:** milotzi  
**Prompt:** own: I am also in Arcadia (Ich bin auch in Arkadien, etching by Carl Wilhelm Kolbe)  
**Pairing:** Minerva McGonagall /Severus Snape  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Summary:** After many years, a chance encounter and a journey that brings happiness  
**Word Count:** 1417  
**Warning(s)/Contains:** nudity  
**Author's Note:** Unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine. Link to the original artwork in the British Museum: [Auch ich war in Arkadien (Kolbe) ](https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1452095&partId=1)  
**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.  
  
Despite being carefully set up, their encounter was quite accidental in other ways.

Both were expecting someone else. If they had thought about it neither would have considered the other to be the type to do what each was doing. To be honest, neither would have expected to find themselves in the situation they found themselves in, either. Least of all they'd have thought that this strange coincidence would lead to a rekindling of an old affair, one that had been more of a matter of convenience than a matter of the heart even at its height. Or that old age (in her case) and late middle age (in his) would be the times in their lives, when, finally, they came to realise that they were capable of being so much more to each other than an agreeable fuck and an ally against boredom and bureaucracy. But this time, once their eyes met in an instant of shocked recognition, each knew. They knew that this time, they would not repeat old mistakes.

It had been many, many years, since they had last set eyes on each other. After the war, things had been awkward. Despite an honest effort on both their parts to see and understand the other's perspective, to forgive and forget, they hadn't been able to, not completely anyway. They could and would not have avoided each other when yet another anniversary came about, with its festivities and commemorative acts, but then they also never sought each other's company either. Once she had retired as headmistress, and he had moved his business back to the Midlands, they had soon lost track of each other.

And so, suddenly, here they were, standing once more opposite each other on opposite sides of a threshold, just as they had when all those years ago, a barely recovered wizard had returned to Hogwarts and knocked on Hagrid's door, only to have it opened by the one person he was hoping to avoid a little longer, his successor and erstwhile lover, the indomitable Minerva McGonagall.

Once more, as then, they were surprised by who it was they were looking at. Once more, in that secret compartment of their hearts each usually kept to themselves, there was an instant gladness that came with recognition. Only this time, they each would have given voice to what they felt, had they not been reminded, by a third voice, what the circumstances of this encounter were.

"Is that the car to pick you up, Auntie? Hello, driver, car 12904 for McCleod, right? McCleod that's us, you'll be driving my great aunt, Ms McGonagall. Here are my great aunt's three suitcases and the aspidistra needs to go with her, too, and she needs to be at the home before they serve dinner at six. Just a moment, let me check you have the address. Right. That's it, the _Rowan Home for Retired Headteachers_ in Bath. The journey's been prepaid, but here's some extra, for food and a cuppa now and then; you will need to stop a few times on the way. No, Auntie, I insist. If you don't feel like coming with us to Australia, the least I can do is that you have a comfortable and safe trip to your new home, in style. Charley, Fiona, Beryl, Greg, come down and say goodbye to Auntie. The car's here!"

The car was a 1967 Mercedes Benz limousine, in pristine condition. When Severus had decided his eye-hand coordination wasn't quite good enough for the exactness needed for experimental potioneering but quite good enough for driving, he had turned his newly discovered interest in driving vintage cars into a pleasant way of earning a living. Customers could be nasty, especially when drunk, but mostly weren't. If they were he remembered enough from his teaching days at a wizarding school to make them behave without anyone being the wiser. Mostly people were nice enough, the money was good, and he enjoyed seeing different parts of the country. Norwich to Bath, and he'd be driving Ms McGonagall. Five hours minimum if they stuck to Muggle rules and Muggle roads, six if they had enough short breaks and lunch. As he lifted the last of her cases into the trunk of the car, he took another quick look at the slim straight figure being hugged by members of her extended family. Ms McGonagall hadn't changed much, it seemed. It was he who had, he thought. Another brief locking of their eyes and a half smile from her, as he opened the door to the front passenger seat she had insisted on occupying was reassuring. She was glad to see him.

They didn't talk until Attleborough. There they had their first stop, way too soon in terms of the length of their journey but both had been longing for words to be said, and, somehow, that didn't seem possible while the car was in motion. Instead, Severus seemed focused on the traffic, while Minerva observed his beautiful hands grip the steering wheel.

Only when each had sipped at their cup of tea and coffee, respectively, they had purchased at the _Wild Bean Café_ at the petrol station, the ice broke.

"Severus." "Minerva."

"It's good to see you.“ Again their voices were in unison.

They smiled at each other. First cautiously, then broadly. Hands sought each other, touched each other, and held on to each other, briefly.

On the way towards and past Cambridge, they started talking. What they had been doing with their lives and how it had come about that they were where they were: he, now in his late sixties, driving a vintage car for a living; she on her way to a small room in a retirement home in the city of her favourite writer.

They took a slight detour, and had luncheon at the _Anchor Inn_ by the river Ouse. As the cool wind made her shiver, he put the plaid he has brought over her shoulders, then his arm. They kissed. Cautiously at first, then as they remembered how good this could be, less so.

On the way to Oxford, via which she has asked him to drive so she could pick up some books, they stopped in Bletchley, Tingewick, and Chesterton to kiss, more passionately each time.

She was in the book shop for a while, and then returned with two bags of books and an antiquarian reprint of Kolbe's _Auch ich war in Arkadien_ to put up in her new room She smiled at his raised eyebrow. "One of my father's favourites. Surprisingly lush for a Scottish vicar, isn't it?"

He looked at the semi-dressed couple pondering the fleeting nature of life in front of a sarcophagus and the nudity gave him ideas. If he'd done the etching, it wouldn't have been the man who was fully nude.

Minerva smiled. It amazed her that she could still tell what he was thinking in unguarded moments like these, so far and few between them in former times.

She kissed his earlobe and murmured, "I'm quite happy to get to see a nice male butt myself but it doesn't seem fair, does it."

It took them until Swindon, with another short stop in Faringdon, to decide that they might as well call Bath and announce that she would be arriving the next day after breakfast due to unforeseen circumstances.

***

 _Et in Arcadia ego_ , he thinks as he puts his arm around her. He is in the deep happiness between postcoital bliss and the quite imminent return to bed _for further fornication_ , as she so aptly puts it. They are both stark naked, except for the towel he is wearing, and hexing the kettle, which not even their combined wizarding powers have been able to bring back to life. Ah well, there will be time for tea later.

The next time, when he picks her up for a drive into the countryside, he will make sure their hotel will be better equipped. Or maybe they'll have a picnic in a park or garden, surrounded lushly growing plants of all kinds. At the thought of a picnic in the nude, his cock twitches. It is good to be alive, Severus thinks.

In the mean time, Minerva's aspidistra sits next to the hotel room orchid on the windowsill, Minerva's naked bum feels good under his hand, and Severus is as happy as he has ever been.

***

[](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/milotzi/84083720/74550/74550_original.jpg)

 


End file.
